


Thief of Hearts

by iam93percentstardust



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Thieves, M/M, Movie Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22959484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: Six months after Tony Stark shot his lover and master thief, Bucky Barnes, off a waterfall, FBI Agent Steve Rogers tracks them down to a restaurant in Fiji.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 236





	Thief of Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [desitonystark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/desitonystark/gifts).



> This is a Dhoom 2 fusion which, if you're unfamiliar with the movie, is an absolutely fantastic film about the world's best thief taking on an apprentice and then falling in love with her while two cops try to chase them down. It's a cross between a buddy cop film and a romance and I love it very much (and also the songs have been stuck in my head for a week now) so here's the ending scene from the movie.
> 
> For a little bit of background, the climax of the movie occurs when the cops chase down the thieves to the side of a cliff and the apprentice, to keep the thief from being arrested/shot by the cops, shoots him herself and he is presumed dead as he falls off the cliff (spoiler alert: he's not).
> 
> A good portion of the dialogue is taken directly from the film. At the moment, I have no intention of writing more but I'll leave it open to a later decision.

_So steal all that you can_

_The magic you began_

_Let’s shout_

_Break out_

_Come on, once again, let’s hear it_

Tony hums along as he backs through the doors, holding a heavy tray in his hands. He glances through the windows to see a few more people seated outside. He’ll get to them just as soon as he’s done dropping off the food and makes a note to tell Bucky they may need to hire on someone else. They’ve been resisting it for the last six months but they had never expected how popular their little beachfront restaurant would be.

“Hey Nick,” he says cheerfully to one of their regulars, setting down one of the plates. “Your burger with tomatoes just the way you like it and another coke.”

“Ah Tony,” the man says. “You’re an angel sent from above.”

Tony laughs. “Better not let Bucky hear you say that,” he teases as he turns to drop off the next couple plates at the table next to him. Nick winces. They all saw how jealous Bucky can get after the first time an out-of-towner laid their hands on Tony’s waist.

One of the other guests—someone new, not a regular—snags his wrist as he walks by. “Can you check on our order? We’re supposed to be heading back to the boat in half an hour.” he complains.

Tony smiles placatingly though he’s seething inwardly. If they were on a time constraint, they shouldn’t have walked through the door five minutes ago. “Of course. What was it again?”

“Chicken and seasonal vegetables.”

“Coming up,” Tony promises them and saunters back to the kitchen. He won’t tell Bucky to hurry it up—they don’t need someone getting food poisoning—but he will check on it, especially because he no longer hears the grill sizzling. He pushes through the doors to see Bucky removing his apron and neatly folding it before placing it on the counter.

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” he asks, putting his hands on his hips.

“Sorry doll,” Bucky says with a cocky grin. “But the cook’s on strike.”

“On strike,” Tony repeats incredulously. He walks closer as Bucky folds his arms and turns away haughtily.

“For breach of contract.”

Ah. Tony sees where this is going. He waits for Bucky to continue.

“It clearly says that I get a kiss every half hour. It’s been over two hours and still, no kiss. I quit,” he states. Tony nods along sympathetically right up until the end when he gives Bucky a coy smile.

“Really?” he whispers. Bucky nods seriously. He circles around Bucky’s back, sashaying toward the counter. He can feel Bucky’s gaze on him in his shorts, turning molten hot. “Well, _my_ contract doesn’t say anything about having to give kisses and I don’t know what kind of boy you think I am but—”

He turns around and Bucky is right there in front of him, arms boxing him in against the counter. “There’s just one way to find out,” Bucky murmurs, leaning in to run his nose against Tony’s.

“And what’s that?” Tony asks.

Bucky’s hand comes up to wrap around his waist, thumb teasing the soft, sensitive skin where his shirt’s ridden up. Tony sucks in a gasp as Bucky ducks his head to breathe his next words against the shell of his ear. “A little bit of this,” Bucky whispers, pressing a barely-there kiss to Tony’s neck. He moves to the other side and kisses that side too. “And a little bit of that.”

Tony rests his hands on Bucky’s chest as Bucky presses forward. Strong hands lift him onto the counter where Bucky shifts between his legs to give him another kiss. It’s shaping up to be a pleasurable couple of minutes when distantly, Tony thinks he hears the music cut out.

“Bucky,” he says urgently. “Bucky—”

Bucky steps away, clearly hearing the same thing that he does. It’s too quiet out in the main restaurant. The dining area had been packed, only a few empty seats available at the bar. There’s no reason for it to be this quiet.

“Stay here,” Bucky tells him and Tony doesn’t really want to but there’s a worried look in Bucky’s eyes that rarely appears so he waits as Bucky ducks out into the restaurant. Above the wooden doors, he sees Bucky look around the restaurant before his head turns toward the pool tables and stops there. Tony reaches behind him to grab one of the knives they keep sharpened at all times. It works best on chicken but he figures it’ll work on a person just as well.

Then he hears a voice that he never wanted to hear again, one that he thought he’d left behind six months ago.

“How about a beer?”

* * *

Bucky pushes through the double doors, looking around in confusion at the empty restaurant. It’s the middle of the lunch rush; the place should be full to bursting—and it’s clear that people _were_ there. Plates were left abandoned, sodas still fizzling with the carbonation. He looks around again, this time leaning forward slightly to see the pool tables.

His blood runs cold as Agent Steve Rogers shoots another shot before leaning the cue up against the table and asking, “How about a beer?” Then his gaze shifts behind Bucky to the kitchen. “You might as well call Tony out. I know he’s back there.”

Bucky doesn’t want to. He wants to take Tony away from here, take him back home, bundle him up in blankets, and curl around him until he stops trembling. He knows that Tony still has nightmares from the waterfall, still dreams about shooting Bucky and how Bucky had crumpled backward off the falls. He licks his lips, preparing to shout for Tony to run, but then Tony is pushing through the doors, a beer in his hands. Bucky gives it a passing glance; there’s no condensation, which means it’s one of the still-warm bottles from the garage, and he has to smile to himself. He’s never met anyone as petty as Tony is.

Tony sets it down in front of Steve and then steps back into Bucky’s waiting arms. “What are you doing here, Rogers?” Bucky asks coldly.

Steve hums. “Can you love someone enough to take his life?” he quotes. Tony fidgets, obviously remembering the waterfall just like Bucky is. “Didn’t think so. If you love someone, you don’t take their life; you sacrifice your own instead.”

He smirks at the two of them like he’s checkmated them, like it’s some grand game instead of Tony and Bucky’s lives. Bucky doesn’t bother correcting him, doesn’t bother telling him about the game of Russian roulette he’d forced Tony to play when he’d thought he’d been betrayed, doesn’t say anything about Tony fully believing that the gun had been loaded with bullets, not blanks, when he shot Bucky. That isn’t for Steve to know.

Steve’s gaze shifts back to Tony. Bucky has to fight down the urge to move Tony behind him. “That day, you saved the Winter Soldier’s life with a bullet, didn’t you?” He clicks his tongue and says admiringly, “Genius.”

Bucky can feel Tony looking up at him but he doesn’t take his eyes off Steve, not even to comfort him. The only concession he makes to feeling the minute trembles in Tony’s body is to curl his hand around his waist, squeezing slightly. He can’t look away. This is the pivotal moment and if he breaks, he’s afraid everything else will break too. He remembers what he told Steve six months ago—either he would walk away alive or Steve would but not both. Six months ago, atop that waterfall, he’d thought that if Steve believed he would be the one walking away, he would give up and leave. But they both had and Steve had learned he hadn’t died and Bucky—Bucky would _kill_ if it meant he could keep Tony safe.

He wonders if Steve knows that or if he truly believes this is all a game.

Steve looks back down at his beer, takes a sip, makes a face. “I felt bad when you were falling off that cliff. I admired you, you know. Leaving your mark upon the world like that, stealing the Queen of England’s jewels out from right under her nose. I said to myself, ‘What a guy.’ But then I got to thinking about all those daring escapes and I thought, ‘What bullshit.’ Your story couldn’t end that way. There had to be something more.”

“That’s why you let Tony go,” Bucky says dully, the pieces falling into place as he realizes just how they’ve been outplayed. He’d thought it was compassion, turned out it was just cunning. “You thought he would lead you right to me.” He smiles self-deprecatingly, just a little smile, barely a twitch of his lips. “Genius.”

“Well thank you,” Steve says. “But now I don’t get it. I’ve been watching you for six months, waiting for the next robbery. First it should have been four months ago but it wasn’t so I thought maybe you were still recovering from your injuries but then there should have been another yesterday and there still wasn’t. So tell me what your plan is.”

Bucky snorts softly like he would just tell him about his next crime. “Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe I like making food.”

“Maybe,” Steve agrees quietly. “Is that it? You’ve changed your signature? Not a twist in your robberies but a flourish on the plate?”

“I’ve changed myself,” Bucky says evenly.

Steve’s eyes flicker to Tony and he nods understandingly. For a moment, Bucky dares to hope. Then Steve says, “I haven’t.”

“Right,” Bucky agrees. He had prepared for this eventuality. He’d been expecting it months ago, had let his guard down as the weeks had passed with no sign of the FBI agent, but he prepares for everything. Tony says he’s paranoid like that. He could still yank out the gun from beneath the counter, could still end Steve’s life before the agent ever knew what hit him, but if he did, they would never stop running. He’s tired of running and Tony deserves better than that.

“I knew someday you would come in search of us.” He looks down at his watch. It’s never worked for as long as he’s worn it but that’s okay because it was never meant to. Its main purpose is to conceal a flash drive. He works the watch off his wrist and holds it out to Steve. “All the information about my robberies. What I stole, where I hid it…” He trails off. The plans aren’t on there but there’s still more than enough to link him to the jobs, more than enough to arrest him. He wonders if he’ll ever get to see the sun again, if Tony will come visit him.

“Anyway,” he says and coughs to hide that his voice is gruffer than usual. “I won’t be needing it now.” When Steve doesn’t immediately take it, he lays it out on the counter.

He looks at Tony, who’s still watching him with a wet sheen to his eyes. He smiles sadly, trying to convey how sorry he is. Tony inhales shakily, slipping his hand into Bucky’s and resting his head against his shoulder. Bucky presses a kiss onto his curls, realizing that it might be the last time he ever gets to do so.

“How are we getting to the airport?” he asks Steve. “Or should we take my car?”

Steve smirks, huffs out a laugh. Before he replies though, someone knocks on the door. “Excuse me?” a young woman calls. Bucky glances at her, takes in the sunglasses and purse, decides _tourist_ derisively like he hadn’t been one not so long ago.

The young woman and her friend look around the empty restaurant. “Is this place open?” she asks.

He gets ready to tell her no but Steve beats him to it. “Of course,” he tells them with a bright smile on his face. “This place is always open.”

Slowly Bucky looks at him. He knows his mouth is gaping open slightly but he can’t stop himself, too surprised by the actions of this man who has spent six months chasing them across the globe. He looks over at Tony to confirm that he heard it too. Tony is looking up at him with a starry, hopeful expression that Bucky wants very badly to kiss off his face but figures it's probably rude to do in front of the customers.

“Let me tell you,” Steve says, interrupting their moment, “that for the world, the Winter Soldier is dead. And there’s nothing that great about putting dead thieves in jail.”

Steve smiles at him, winks, and stands to leave. Bucky watches him go and when he turns his attention back to the counter, he sees that Steve left behind two things: a coin for the beer and the watch.

“Can we get two burgers please?” the girl calls as she and her friend seat themselves.

Bucky looks at the coin, flipping it between his fingers. After a moment, he realizes Tony is looking expectantly at him. He gives him his best innocent expression. “Don’t look at me,” he says. “I’m still on strike.”

He saunters back to the kitchen before he’s unable to hide his grin any longer, still flipping the coin, waiting to hear the patter of Tony’s feet behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not permit for this work to be shown anywhere other than AO3. If you are reading this on either another website or an app, it was stolen without my permission and I want to be informed.


End file.
